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Review of Justin Sirois's FALCONS ON THE FLOOR

In his powerful and methodical novel, Sirois guides the reader on a
three-day trek from Fallujah to Ramadi as two young Iraqis attempt to
elude the violence that has become entrenched in their lives. Spurred by
his desire to slip away from his contract work as a designer of
propaganda for the Fedayeen—and to contact a woman he only knows via the
internet—Salim prepares to set out on what he believes will be a solo
journey until his longtime friend Khalil insists on accompanying him.
Khalil has also done contract work for the Fedayeen, though mostly grunt
work, and he is an accidental celebrity of sorts—he appears in a widely
circulated photograph showing two brutally massacred men. Their journey
takes them alongside the Euphrates River past ravaged vehicles and
ravaged lives with Sirois zooming in and out of the minds of his
characters as he deftly moves between first and third person narration.
Throughout, Sirois strings a web of grand tension as the reader is
constantly reminded, despite and even within the levity between the
characters, that death is imminent. In the distance, motionless shapes
become men with weapons. The water of the snaking Euphrates River while
refreshing to one man grows poisonous to the other. Within the grand
tension of the war that Sirois has wonderfully captured, there are great
moments of tension built on smaller more personal scales for the
characters. Alas, this tension too often dissipates because it’s never
exploited, and a towering obstacle like crossing the Euphrates in an
aged rowboat, for example, is too easily overcome. However, it’s a small
gripe for this meticulously crafted tale, and in the final third of the
novel Sirois quickens the pace, the danger, and so too the pulse of the
reader. At times a buddy story with welcome flecks of humor, and at
other times a beautiful and harsh meditation on war torn lives and
landscapes, Falcons on the Flooris, in the end, an important and accessible tale of humanity struggling to maintain itself amid swirling chaos. (March 2012)